


For Mother and Bethany

by alliancedogtags



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Darkspawn, Gen, Ostagar, a bit of family feelings and foreshadowing oh no i didn't sign up for this, tons of dead people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 15:38:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1161535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alliancedogtags/pseuds/alliancedogtags
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marian Hawke is on a hunt -- to find her brother in the midst of the Ostagar battlefield.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Mother and Bethany

**Author's Note:**

> it was like 3 AM on mobile when I threw this one together, and I'm in a constant need to get my hawke frustrations out

It’s body after body, buried beneath darkspawn filth and bloody soldiers. Soldiers with families. Soldiers with friends. Soldiers who probably went out at the week’s end with their friends for a nice swig of ale at the tavern, even a wench to warm them between the sheets. 

Now they are just faces. Faces she doesn’t recognize; other than the few who had been in her unit and had fallen when the first wave pummeled into them and had thrown them back. A few stragglers had appeared now and then, snarls cut off by the side-swung Fereldan blade that Marian clutched painfully in her hands, white cramped knuckles and bloodslicked palms.

Hours ago, word had rippled across the crowds that Cailan had fallen, that there was no backup, that the Grey Wardens had betrayed the armies. But something felt off about it. 

She came across a few leftover soldiers. They weren’t who she was hunting so desperately for. A desperation that burned her throat with bile, caused heaves to escape her mouth, caused the trembling and urgency she carried. 

His back was turned to her; crouched down as he dug through a pile of corpses, blood splattered up his arms and a fresh cut bleeding on his cheek. Marian wished to call out his name, hoped for a sound to escape her; but it was just a strangled cry in her throat, one that he heard, one that caused him to spring from where he’d been digging and bound across to her in a few easy steps.

Carver was the one to throw his arms around his older sister, hugging her, smelling of death and blood and evil, though beneath, simply himself. His strong hold shook her out of her state, a hug that she returned, simply holding her brother, thinking  _thank the Maker he lives._

"Marian—"

"Carver, I thought—"

"—you were dead. We have—"

"Have to get to Lothering. They’re not going to stay here."

"For Mother and Bethany."

"For Mother and Bethany," Marian echoed, and let go of him, the trembling worsened to a full-body shake, the blade she’d dropped when she hugged him forgotten at their feet and bottom lip quivering.

Watching her brother. Watching the family that she’d nearly lost, all in the heroic glamour to jump to arms for a country she rarely cared for.

Her relief at Carver’s living was short lived — yet she did not know that, not just yet. 


End file.
